Today EDF released a report on the relationship between publicly funded international financial institutions (like the World Bank) and coal fired power plants which harm both regional human health and the atmosphere.

Here are a couple of key facts from the report:

– Since 1994, the World Bank, other MDBs and ECAs financed new construction or expansion of 88 coal-fired power plants.

– These plants will generate roughly 791 million tons of CO2 emissions per year, or more than 75% of the current emissions for coal-fired power in the entire European Union.

Bruce Rich, a long time crusader for reform of these institutions, spearheaded this work. Among his recommendations: immediately shift any future money for coal plants into renewables.

Researchers at UC Berkeley and Texas Tech University have created an interesting new map based upon ten years of satellite data (1996-2006). The new map predicts regions of the planet that will become more or less fire prone as the climate changes.

The study, currently being peer reviewed, presents an interesting view of a changing world: the extreme northern latitudes, Tibet, the Fertile Crescent, and the high desert regions of the US will see an increase in fires while the entirety of southeast Asia, southern India, the Iberian peninsula, and large swaths of Brazil and north-central Africa, will see less fires.

As a geographer, this map compels me to ask questions. For instance, how will the new fire regime affect the local and regional ecologies of species that rely upon fire for propogation? How will species unadapted to fire cope? These questions are vexing conservation biologists and planners as I write this: how do you best plan for the massive ecosytem changes we expect to see in the coming century?

Bottom line: the warning signs are everywhere that this planet is warming. EDF is working diligently to pass policies at the local, regional, state, national, and international levels, so that we can begin the process of stabilizing the climate.

An estimated 82 million Americans, including yours truly, have some sort of a garden in their yard. That number is probably increasing due to the recent economic situation and a re-trend towards victory gardens. So all of you out there who are into gardening stay tuned: The USDA is releasing a new plant hardiness zone map which will help everyday gardeners choose which plants to grow. The map will also illuminate the tangible changes in vegetation regimes since the last map was produced in 1990.

Why is this important? There’s an ongoing perception that the green collar economy will only be available to highly trained, affluent people. However, there’s already 500 million in the stimulus package for green collar job training, and the fact that we can now verify the location of green companies in proximity to middle and lower income areas means that there are already opportunities for people close to where they live. We don’t know the details: how many people are being hired, what kind of backgrounds they come from, etc. But perhaps this analysis is a crystal ball into the future of the green collar economy.

Here’s how I figured this out:

I took all of the green company location data for the 12 states we at EDF included in the lesscarbonmorejobs.org report and overlaid it with some zip code level demographics data in my geographic information system (GIS).

Then, I created a threshold for “middle class” by defining it as per capita income $25,000 per year…which could be expanded or changed due to the definition of “middle class”.

Using the GIS, I found out how many of the green companies were within the selected zip codes, how many were within 1 mile, and how many were within 5 miles

I then used the same methodology to find the green companies in poorer areas, which I defined as: per capita income < $20,000/year

Here are the results of the analysis:

For the middle class,

540 of the 1,197 comanies are located within middle class zip codes

704 are within one mile

965 are within five miles

For poorer areas,

307 are located within poorer zip codes

445 are within one mile

781 are within 5 miles

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for this line of analysis, or if you thought it was useful (use the comments for this! Everyone benefits from great comments!) If people yearn to see the zip code level demographic data as an overlay on the google map, I can make it happen…but only if it’s something the community will value.

That’s the word Steve Cochran, director of EDF’s national climate campaign, used to describe our effort to show the nation that thousands of companies across the U.S. are already fully engaged in the “green economy”. Our director of sustainable technologies, Jackie Roberts asked a pertinent question in a blog post last July:

How can we concretely describe the economic opportunity of a low-carbon economy?

Our new set of maps, released today, which shows 1,200 companies in 12 states via the interactive maps, takes the logical step of begging to answer Jackie’s question. Now, Jackie says:

These maps tell the story of companies across the manufacturing heartland that will get new customers and create jobs with cap and trade

Does the green economy affect you and your livelihood? Can we do a better job with the maps? Missing your company? Let us know!